The invention relates generally to image forming devices and, more particularly, to identification of deliveries of individual content to a shared printer.
When more than one user shares a printer, it may be difficult as well as time-consuming to determine whose document has been printed out. Cover sheets as well as banner pages have been used to identify the source computer in shared printer environments. For example, a banner sheet may be output at the beginning or at the end of a print job. Where multiple copies of a print job are processed, typically a banner sheet is printed for each copy printed. When utilizing a banner sheet to indicate the source of the print job, generally the user may only choose either to print a banner sheet with the print job, which is typically the default setting, or refrain from printing a banner sheet with the print job. However, where the banner sheet option is controlled by the shared print server, the user may not have the option of choosing whether or not to print the banner sheet.
Some printers have been developed to avoid such a problem by allowing the selection of printing multiple copies of a print job and indicating the combined multiple copy printing as a single print job. Thus, such a process may involve multiple pages. However, sometimes the cover sheet or banner page may become separated from the printed material, making source identification more difficult.
In addition, personalization headlines or other identifiers have been used to identify the source computer for the content material. However, the use of personalization headlines or other identifiers is not always desirable for all print jobs.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system for marking print jobs in an efficient, cost-effective manner that may be utilized to determine print job ownership for any respective print job. The present invention is directed to overcoming or at least reducing the effects of one or more of the problems set forth above.
The present invention provides a method and system for marking pages printed for a print job in correspondence with an identification of a user that initiates a print job. The identification of the user is indicated to a printer and a selection is made by the user, of a mark to associate with the user""s identification. The user sends the print job to the printer and the printer prints the mark automatically on each page printed for the print job.